The Featured Question

The featured question this week comes from Scott Kramer:

Jon, first, you truly stand out when it comes to consulting and Facebook Marketing, and I enjoy following you very much. Here’s the question, and one we are going to test within Power Editor. Question: How can you use conversion tracking successfully to a site that is NOT ecommerce related? For example, conversion tracking for email sign up, form, apps, etc… Thanks.

I guess it never hurts to begin a question with a bunch of ego stroking. Nicely done, Scott. Nicely done.

What is Conversion Tracking?

Before we get going here, it’s important to step back and explain this amazing feature that you are very likely neglecting.

Facebook Conversion Tracking is the ability to track whether or not your Facebook ad led to a conversion on your website.

Why is it Valuable?

Are you seriously asking this? Yeah, it’s valuable.

Facebook Conversion Tracking is valuable because it provides the ability to measure the true ROI of a campaign based on cost per conversion (with the help of the new ad reports!).

It’s also valuable because it allows Facebook to optimize your ad for a specific conversion, targeting at people most likely to perform that action.

How Conversion Tracking is Done

Facebook provides a snippet of code (also known as an Offsite Pixel) that an advertiser places between the HEAD tags of the conversion success page on their website (“Thank you for your purchase!”).

Facebook then knows that when a user who also clicks on your ad saw that success page, a conversion was the result of your ad.

Types of Conversions Tracked

When people think of “conversions,” actions like Checkouts and Adds to Cart come to mind — the things that result in a payment.

Yes, Facebook tracks and optimizes for these specific actions. But they also optimize for and track other conversions that may not lead to direct revenue:

Registrations

Leads

Key Page Views

Other Website Conversions

When you create an Offsite Pixel, you can select any of these types of conversions (along with Checkouts and Adds to Cart, of course).

Keys to Lead and Email List Building Conversion Tracking

So let’s assume that you have a landing page on your website dedicated to increasing leads (a contact form) or building your email list (an email subscription form). You want to drive traffic to it with Facebook ads.

2. Place the Pixel.
That pixel will then need to go between the HEAD tags (or within a tracking code box of your CMS) on the success page. This is critical. It shouldn’t go on the page where you collect information, but on the one that indicates a conversion was completed (a “Thank You” in most cases).

3. Third Party Considerations.
Now, you probably use a third party tool to collect email addresses and potentially complete contact forms. Make sure, though, that you have those tools redirect to a page within your control when the conversion is complete.

This can be easily missed because most email tools, for example, have a default redirect page on their own servers. You need to change this!

Another issue to consider is double opt-ins for email list subscriptions. You’ll want the pixel to go on the page immediately following the form completion, not the email confirmation.

4. Create an Ad.
I find most success getting conversions by targeting my Fans. You probably will, too, if they are a highly qualified group.

About Jon Loomer

Jon Loomer is a digital marketing consultant with a unique perspective on social media. He was introduced to Facebook in 2007 while with the NBA (back before Pages) and has been using Facebook for business ever since. Stay in touch by liking his Facebook Page (Jon Loomer Digital).

http://www.spinxwebdesign.com/ Alan Smith

Hope it will give more data than Google analytics.

http://30x1.com/ Bryan Harris

How could you use this in a Mac OSx app?

val

does it make sense to put the pixel on all pages (masterpage) ?

SammyW

How accurate is Facebook’s conversion pixel? Conversions for us are reporting higher than Google Analytics, in some cases significantly.

http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer

Keep in mind that it doesn’t have to be a direct path. Conversions are based not only on clicks, but views. That would certainly make results different than Google if you’re looking at conversions from Facebook.

Rychellon

Hey Jon! You rock man! Can you help me, please?

My question is.. in an ecommerce , the success page (after checkout) is the same for all products (normally with Magento, Opencart, Prestashop and others)…

If the customer pays for the product A, he is redirected to a success page, let’s call “page X”. If the customer pays for the product B, it also redirects to the same page of sucess – page X.

The point is, the success confirmation page is common to all products in the store (ecommerce).

If a visit comes from a specific ad and lands on the product page A (which is the conversion I want to track), but then, just click on another item in the sidebar menus or banners, and buy product B.
The purchase confirmation success page (which will be the pixel) will track the conversion?

In this case the conversion will be about product B, not A right? And if may even have different prices… This would give me incorrect data and incorrect values ​​for campaign ROI.

How the pixel works in this case? How to avoid this confusion?

I’m new to the resource and for this, the doubt. I will be very grateful if you can help me ..

Congratulations, the article is show!

Jeff Tappan

Hi Jon, quick question. Will a facebook conversion tracking pixel register in the FB tacking site if I put it on a page that is automatically redirected. In other words, I create a FB ad with a link that sends them to my website with tracking pixel, but immediately/automatically redirect them to Amazon. Will it register or does the redirect happen too quickly and no register of the hit? Thanks, Jeff

http://www.norio.co.za/ Norio De Sousa

I’d also love to know the answer to this. I’ve set something up using a Javascript redirect but so far it looks like it redirects before the conversion pixel fires up!